On 17 May 1945 in Oświęcim, District Investigative Judge Jan Sehn, member of the Commission for the Investigation of German-Nazi Crimes in Oświęcim, with the participation of prosecutor Bronisław Maciołowski, pursuant to Articles 254 and 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed Alicja Piotrowska as a witness, former prisoner no. 84,748 of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who, after being advised in accordance with Articles 107 and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Alicja Piotrowska |
| Date and place of birth | 4 October 1901 in Łódź |
| Parents’ names | Jakub Gontarek and Paulina Starczewska |
| Marital status | married |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Last place of residence | Warsaw, Grójecka Street 9 |
On 1 August 1944 at 4.30 p.m., an uprising broke out in Warsaw, that is, it was then that I heard shots in the house at Grójecka Street, where I lived. I did not leave the house until 10 August. That afternoon, I don’t remember the exact hour, a tank with German soldiers arrived at my house. They rushed inside with rifles, covered with bullet and grenade straps, and they ordered the residents to leave the house under the threat of being shot. I went outside, together with my 14-year-old son Paweł, other residents and people who had taken shelter in our house. The German soldiers, I don’t know from which regiment, demanded we give them our watches and other valuables, saying that on the way the Ukrainians would take them away from us anyway. We were escorted along Grójecka Street to the south, to the so-called Zieleniak. On the way there, we indeed saw Ukrainian soldiers jumping at the people being escorted, snatching things from their hands, taking valuable items away, and scattering some of those things on the street, so that a lot of them were lying around on the ground. The houses along the entire Grójecka Street were already burnt down and there were many human corpses. I saw the Ukrainians take some women into empty houses, where, as I heard afterwards, they were raped.
Many people had already been gathered in the Zieleniak. We stayed there all night, witnessing new crowds of people being brought in. The Ukrainians arrived at night. They started searching the remaining luggage, stealing valuable items, and selecting handsome women. Finally, they gathered 30 men and said that they must be executed because weapons had been found during the searches. They actually started shooting those men. When they had already shot eight of them, German soldiers came running and forbade any further shooting. Throughout that night, we could constantly hear shots and see that Warsaw was on fire. Around noon, the Germans ordered us to gather and escorted us to the Western Railway Station. After a short while, we were transported by electric trains to Pruszków. During all that time, the Germans were assuring us that we would be evacuated to various towns for safety reasons and no harm would come to us. Before we got on a freight train in Pruszków, where I was put after 15 minutes, a German officer, when asked by a gentleman standing near me, assured us that they were only evacuating us in order to protect us from the Soviets. After 15 minutes, I was placed on a freight train. The Germans who were in charge of the train were also assuring us that we were safe, but when somebody wanted to leave the train, they were shot at.
That train took me and other people to Auschwitz. There were about 2,500 people inside, because the train consisted of about 50 cars, and each of them could accommodate 50 people. Another train with people evacuated from Warsaw had arrived at Auschwitz just before us. That freight train consisted of 70 cars. I would like to add that those trains arrived directly at the Birkenau railway siding. It happened on 12 August in the evening. The whole camp was illuminated. While we were getting off the train, a selection was being performed – the men and boys over 14 years old went to the left, and the women with younger children and girls – to the right. Some mothers managed to stay with their sons who were over 14 by giving a different age. After all the cars had been cleared, we were escorted to the quarantine barrack, which had no floor. 1,500 people with luggage were held there in terrible conditions. After a day or two, some of them were taken to the bathhouse, and then to the camp proper.
I had to wait several days before I was able to leave that barrack and was taken to camp A. During the entire stay in the barrack, we received no food. We were only given water by Jews from the camp. Some of them brought us a bit of their own food. We also secretly received small amounts of bread from Polish female prisoners who had been ordered by the Germans to prepare lists of the newly arrived. Additionally, a Polish doctor, who had arrived at the camp before us, was looking after us. I do not know his name, but he was tall and balding. During my stay, the barracks were closed at night. In my barrack, there were girls from a school in Warsaw run by nuns. I believe it was the school at Żytnia Street. Only the students were placed there – the nuns were kept separately, but no one knew where. One night, one of those girls went mad and started screaming “Merciful Jesus!” and other words of prayers. Finally, she ran off with an inhuman scream in an unknown direction. A commotion broke out and I called for a doctor. Then, someone opened the barrack door and came in, holding a strong torch, which kept him in the shadow. Illuminated by that light, the sick girl was taken away. I would like to mention that during the selection that took place when we were leaving the train, my son was taken away to an unknown location. Later on, he sent me a secret card, informing me that he was being kept in the men’s camp. On 22 August 1944, he was transported to Flossenbürg, Germany, which I learned later on from Dr. Wolken, also an Auschwitz prisoner.
The most tragic moment took place on our way from the barrack to the camp, when we were passing through the bathhouse. First of all, people were deprived in the barrack of gold items, money, other valuables, and documents. The documents were replaced with a card with the prisoner’s name. In my group, the items were collected by Polish female prisoners under the supervision of a German. Some of them were more zealous than others, some of them were even instructing us to hide our belongings, but all of them were warning that if any hidden valuables or money were discovered, we could be killed. The money and valuables were placed in separate bags. I saw there were immense amounts of gold and other valuables. Some people were throwing their money into the toilets, some were burying it in the ground, while others were giving it to camp prisoners, regardless of their nationality. Then, we were escorted in groups of about a thousand people to the sauna, where everyone, regardless of their age, had to strip naked. Our belongings were packed in sacks together with the cards with our names that we had received in the barrack. We were not allowed to keep anything, except for food wrapped in paper or, in the case of liquids, in a jar. Then, we were escorted completely naked, dressed only in our own shoes, to the corridor leading to the bathhouse proper. We stayed there for a long time, because it was there that items were collected for disinfection. On the right side of that corridor was the part of the camp where the men worked. It was separated from the corridor just by an ordinary barrier. When standing in that corridor, we noticed a large transport of Jews from Łódź consisting of about 5,000 people. It was very hot, but they were being kept outside. The Jews were asking for water. Then, a Jewish female prisoner who was working there entered the corridor, saw the above-mentioned transport in the yard, and began distributing water through the window, but a German Aufseherin dressed in an SS uniform saw it. She beat the Jewish woman and the transport remained without water. There were rumours that that transport was killed in the gas chambers that very night.
At the end of the corridor, just outside the bathhouse, Jewish female prisoners examined us and cut our hair. They were extremely upset, I suppose, by the sight of their fellow believers, destined for death. If somebody did not want to have their hair cut or shaved, they asked us how we could be so outraged by such little things when people were losing their lives. Women indeed quarelled because they did not want to have their hair cut and armpits shaved, especially because in the previous group hair had only been roughly shaved in cases of actual head lice contamination. Before taking a shower, we had to take off our shoes at the threshold. Our legs and shoes were dipped in disinfectant liquid, and then we approached the warm showers. I would like to mention that after our hair was shaved or cut, the spots were rubbed with a liquid that had a kerosene smell and caused tingling and pain. After the shower, we were given clothes [previously worn by other people] that had not been thoroughly cleaned, so some patches were still covered in faeces or blood. Slim people received loose-fitting clothes, while the clothes given to stout people were too small. After we got dressed, we were taken to camp A in Birkenau, where the registration took place. Our names were written down along with our numbers. The whole process lasted from morning to evening.
In the meantime, a meal was served. If I remember correctly, it was coffee and a few servings of soup that were enough only for some people. During that time, we witnessed a roll call held for prisoners who had arrived at the camp earlier. The procession was headed by a brass band that stopped where reports were made. During the roll call, the Kapos, who were female prisoners of various nationalities, as well as block seniors and German Aufseherinnen in uniforms, beat the marching women for no reason. They usually used their hands. Since it turned out that some of us had clothes covered in lice, we had to take a shower again, but to do that we had to wait, in light dresses and in severe cold, until 3.00 a.m. After the shower, we were given the same, used, poorly washed and cleaned clothes. Then, we were escorted, as I have already mentioned, to section A. I was placed in block 18 together with so many others that there was only one bunk for eight women. Paper pallets filled with some kind of powder served as bedding. The bunks had three levels – the first one was located directly on the stone floor and often lacked even a straw mattress; the second and third ones had wooden scaffolding. Normally, one bunk bed could fit four people. I stayed in that block for two days, because mothers were then transferred to block 17.
Behind block 17 was block 16, where children were kept: girls aged from six months to 14 years old and boys under the age of 12, because older boys were transferred to block 16 after a few days. The Germans performed a selection of boys from 12 to 14 years of age and took them to a men’s block. Theoretically, mothers were allowed to see their children, but they encountered so many obstacles that the visits were almost impossible. The mothers were allowed to leave their block at different hours than the children, or there were other obstacles that prevented them from seeing each other. At the same time, the camp personnel scared the children, saying that they would catch diseases or lice from their mothers, so that the children did not want to see them. For that reason, the children sometimes asked their mothers not to visit them. They looked very pitiful, miserable and scared.
While I stayed in block 17, which lasted quite a long time, although I was transferred back and forth to different sections, my life was as follows: at 4.00 a.m. we had to get up, leave the block and wait until dawn for the roll-call in light dresses, while it was chilly. We had to stand there still, because otherwise we were beaten or poked. Even if we had to satisfy a natural need, we were not allowed to leave the line. After the roll call, we received coffee. Some women also had bread left over from the previous evening. After the breakfast, we were not allowed to return to the block, but we had to stay outside in the heat, so we drank water, although we had been warned that we could catch a disease. Indeed, there was a diarrhea outbreak afterwards. In the evening, there was another roll call, and then we returned to the block. For dinner, we usually got soup, and in the evening we received a cup of coffee again and a piece of bread. Three times a week we were also given a piece of sausage, a piece of margarine also three times a week, and some cheese or honey once a week. The servings of sausage and margarine, cheese or honey were of course often reduced by block seniors or lower-level camp staff. The portions given to children were especially reduced.
When I fell sick with diarrhea, I went to a doctor, a Polish female prisoner, who, however, did not take me to the hospital, saying that I was not as sick as required by the German doctor. Then, I got so weak that I fainted during a roll call and my temperature dropped to below 35 degrees, so I approached a friend of mine, whom I knew from the university – Dr. Irena Białówna from Białystok, also a prisoner – and she admitted me to the hospital. I have to mention that during my stay in the block there were periods when we were not allowed to go outside. It happened when prisoners were being prepared for transport outside the camp or to Germany for work, or when Jews were being selected for the gas chambers and crematoria. Those were horrible moments – so many young women had to stay idle in the block, which was hot and incredibly stuffy. While we stayed in the block, due to insufficient food and the resulting hunger, a number of people betrayed their lowest instincts. They stole from others and harassed weaker and less vigorous women. This is what my life looked like until
mid-November 1944, when I was taken to the hospital by Dr. Białówna, who had told the German doctor that I was a doctor too. There was a shortage of doctors after Dr. Kościuszko and another Russian doctor named Olga – a prisoner of war, whose surname I do not know, but she was an extremely kind person – were transported out of the camp.
During my stay in the hospital as a doctor, I had a chance to have a closer look at the system designed by the German authorities. It was aimed at exterminating people. I was employed in the diarrhea ward. According to all prisoners who were doctors, diarrhea occurred as a result of starvation and should be treated with appropriate nutrition that would be intensified if the patient’s health started to improve. Meanwhile, the German doctor prohibited us from serving food to patients on their first day in the hospital, because the German authorities did not provide food for newly admitted patients. Then for two or three days, the patients received two slices of dried black bread, and only then, if they survived and were still alive, they received soup – although the dish could hardly be called that. There were almost no medications. We often received orders to empty the hospital, so the sick had to be transferred to the convalescent ward or even released back to work. Such prisoners often returned to the hospital, but they could no longer be cured then. As a result of that system, the mortality rate in my block amounted to two to ten people a day. This was the time when the camp was already being emptied and evacuated, and there were fewer and fewer people. However, I was told that previously the mortality rate was 500 people a day. I stayed in the camp until the Germans left, which happened on 27 January.
While I was working as a doctor in that block, many patients shared with me their experiences. For example, Mrs. Cywińska from Łódź told me that she had been imprisoned together with her two daughters – one was 22 years old and the other 20. One of them had died of typhus by her mother’s side, the other one – of pemphigus, lying in a bed next to hers. Other women complained about prisoner Hanna Uhomicz from Łódź, who was a nurse. They claimed that she stole from sick prisoners, pulled rings from their fingers, ate food intended for the patients or traded it for cigarettes. She harrassed the sick, poking and beating them, while cleaning the waste, sat on patients’ sick arms when changing the dressing, etc. Zofia Flaks from Drohobycz told me that she was eight months pregnant when German doctors gave her some injections, which caused a miscarriage and made her ill. A Hungarian doctor, who, however, was not employed as a doctor, showed me his wound left by a German dog that had bitten him. It happened shortly before the Germans left the camp. One of the female prisoners dictated to me from memory three poems written by prisoners, depicting the events that took place in the camp. I am handing these poems to the Commission for the purpose of making a copy, but I would like to have them returned to me.
At this point, the interview was completed; the report was read out and signed.